In order to condition the environment in a building such as a store or office, equipment items such as air-conditioning units and lighting fittings are installed in the building. The equipment items generally operate according to user instructions entered via a terminal or the like. Furthermore, in recent years, a system including multiple equipment items and a control device controlling the equipment items via a network may be installed. The control device in such a system executes control using several schemes.
For example, the control device receives a request such as “cooler” or “remove moisture” from the user and controls the equipment item to fulfill the request. Alternatively, the control device can use sensors measuring the temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, and the like and controls the equipment item to make the user feel more comfortable.
With the use of either of the above schemes, the equipment items presumably waste more energy if the environment in the entire space of a building is conditioned. Techniques for reducing the wasted energy have been proposed (for example, see Patent Literature 1 and 2).
The system described in the Patent Literature 1 displays to each of multiple users requests received from the other users. Consequently, each user is expected to make a request in consideration of how the other users feel. Then, the energy can further be saved.
The system described in the Patent Literature 2 detects the locations of the user and obstacles in the room. The system selects and controls the equipment item with the lowest degree of reduction in the environment conditioning range caused by the obstacle between the equipment and the user. Consequently, the environment around the user can be conditioned without interference by the obstacle.